


The Irish Job

by ishafel



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: F/M, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 21:16:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1279126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/pseuds/ishafel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Irish job is a risky one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Irish Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lexie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/gifts).



There are probably worse places than Belfast to be in the summer of '97. Probably, if he worked at it, Michael could even think of one or two. At least one. Right now, though, it's brutally hot, even by Florida standards, and Fiona is half an hour late for their meeting, which means he's stuck in a smoky pub nursing a pint of Guinness so thick he needs a spoon to drink it properly, choking on cigarette smoke and talking to the locals about football in what he suspects is a shitty Irish accent.

And then, when Fi finally does come slamming into the pub, he knows straight away there's going to be trouble. Or, properly, that there are already is trouble. Fi's dressed like a high-class prostitute in a working class bar, and the first thing she does is grab him by the throat and throw him back against the bar. Michael's already noticed that for someone who weighs approximately ninety pounds, she's freakishly strong.

He knows a cue when he sees one. “Sure, and what is it that's troublin' you, colleen?” he drawls, although it's hard to sound nonchalant with Fi's sharp little elbow pressing against his adam's apple. He can think of two distinct possibilities. Either someone from the IRA's found about the guns, in which case they're in trouble, or Fiona's found out he's playing her, in which case he's in trouble. But he can't tell which it is--.

“I'm pregnant, is what the matter is, Michael O'Flaherty,” Fiona shrieks. “You've only gone and knocked me up, is what the matter is! Damn you! How could you do this to me?” Or a third, distinct possibility, which has only just occurred to Michael, and which is terrifying-- Fi is pregnant, and he is really, seriously in trouble, so deep that not even the CIA extraction team he has on standby can save him. Whenever she's angry, Fi's accent gets so strong as to be incomprehensible, and usually Michael finds this funny but just now he can't breathe. He'd like to think it's because of the elbow, but actually it's pure terror.

A Navy SEAL he knew in Bosnia warned him that this was going to happen someday, and right now all Michael wants is a chance to have another drink with Sam, somewhere in a combat zone far, far away from Northern Ireland, and let Sam tell him that he'd told him so. At least then he'd have survived screwing his asset.

“Fi, darlin',” he says, because he doesn't dare break character in case the IRA is waiting outside with guns and armored trucks. “What makes you think it's mine?”

“What are you implying, Michael O'Flaherty,” she demands. “Are you implying I'm some kind of whore who can't even keep track of the men I've been with?”

Even the fictional, dumb, sodden Michael O'Flaherty with his job at the meatpacking plant and his sideline running guns across the border would be smart enough to know the correct answer to that. “Now, Fiona,' he says placatingly, raising his empty hands. “Darlin'. You know I wasn't implying that. Just-- I thought you were using protection, is all I'm saying.”

“And imperil my sacred, immortal soul?” Fi screams. “How could you, Michael?”

If Fiona has one weakness as an operative, it's her tendency to use explosives when they aren't really necessary, or even useful. If she has two weaknesses, though-- the second one is a tendency to overdramatize when she's playing a role. Michael has worked on this with her, tried to get her to tone it down. Apparently it hasn't helped.

Still, he feels the first faint glimmering of something that might be hope. Fi isn't quite acting like this is life or death. If the IRA were involved, if she'd made him, if (God help him) she were really pregnant with his child, he has to think she wouldn't be enjoying it quite so much. “Let's go outside and talk this over somewhere quieter,” he says, trying to keep his words from sounding patronizing. “Somewhere private. Just you and me.”

“That's what got us into this mess, you flaming idiot!” But to Michael's relief, she seems to be considering it. The pressure on his throat loosens a little. “Fine.” She lets go of him and reaches his for his glass, takes a long swallow of Guinness before she slams it back onto the table. “Come on then.”

The man who'd been sitting next to Michael when she came in let's out his breath in an admiring whistle. “Wssht. That's got to be bad for the poor wee babe.”

Fi ignores him, catching Michael by the arm and dragging him out into the night. Once they're outside, though, she takes his hand and walks normally beside him to her car. Without a word, she unlocks the trunk and opens it, to show him the guns, neatly packed in their crate. She shuts it again, and turns to him.

And then, finally, she starts to laugh. “Ah, Michael, you should have seen your face in there. Sure and I think you'd rather have faced down the Sons of Ulster singlehanded than had that conversation. And does the thought of me having your baby really terrify you that much?”

There they go, straight from playing baseball with a hand grenade to playing football on a minefield. Michael knows better than to say what he's really thinking, which is that he's never met a woman more beautiful or less suited to motherhood than Fiona-- except, possibly, for his own mother, whom he tries not to think about. “Of course it doesn't,” he says, no hesitation. “I was just trying to stay in character.”

“Sure you were,” Fi says, but she smiles when she's saying it, and he knows he's safe, for the moment. Later, though, when they're in bed together in his hotel room and she's asleep beside him, he thinks of Sam and makes a silent promise-- never again. No more assets and no more Irish women.


End file.
